


Festival

by madamebadger



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Holidays, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-10 13:18:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5587129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madamebadger/pseuds/madamebadger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The most notable holidays in the Resistance, ironically, aren't from a planet at all--or they were, but it's a planet that was turned to dust and nothing before Rey was even born.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Festival

**Author's Note:**

> Oh gosh, I am so uncomfortable posting something for a fandom where I can’t readily/easily refer back to the canon. And where I can’t listen to the characters on repeat to get their ‘voice’ down.
> 
> And yet… I can’t help it.

One of the strangest things to become accustomed to in the Resistance, for both Finn and Rey, is the frequency of holidays.

Rey knows that it shouldn't be a surprise, really. She is aware that there are at least a hundred planets in the galactic community, and most of them—those that are homeworlds, anyway, and not underpopulated semi-colonies like Jakku—boast a hundred cultures of their own, each with a number of holidays. The Resistance represents any number of those cultures, and unlike the First Order and the Empire that preceded it, the Resistance allows its members to celebrate as they choose, according to the customs of their own worlds and cultures.

At first she needs Poe to help her navigate these manifold celebrations, scattered as they are across the galactic calendar. He explains that Nien Nunb has taken ten days of leave for the Sullustian glamour holiday, that Jess Pava's lips are painted blue in recognition of the yearly ceremony of Valadisok on her homeworld, that Admiral Ackbar invites everyone—the whole Resistance, everyone who is close enough and well enough to attend—to the Feast of Or Rala every year, and that in the dark years of the old Alliance the 'feast' was mostly pre-packaged noodles reconstituted in boiling water, but still he followed the tradition of hospitality.

The most notable holidays in the Resistance, ironically, aren't from a planet at all—or they were, but it's a planet that was turned to dust and nothing before Rey was even born. And yet General Organa tracks what would have been the days, months, and years on the planet of her origin; General Organa tracks them as if Alderaan were still out there somewhere, turning on its axis and around its sun, as if she is only a temporary exile instead of a permanent one, and she celebrates each holiday as if the rest of her people were celebrating too.

It strikes Rey as sad, desperately sad, almost unbearably sad. At least—it does until Temuura, the Alderaan festival of stars, comes around. And everyone celebrates. There are star lights strung about the base, and sparkling lightsticks burning by night, and star-shaped pastries sweet and flaky and filled with adaberry jam, and wishes burned in floating lanterns. 

The Resistance is on Demar III when Temuura comes around, and it's the first time that Rey sees _all_ of them celebrate the same holiday, as opposed to the person-by-person celebrations of specific homeworld holidays. She sees Jess with lights strung in her long dark hair, she sees Mothma offering star pastries to everyone at meetings, she sees Ackbar setting up the holodevice that will project the constellations—as they would have been seen from Eseth, the once-capitol of Alderaan—onto the ceiling of the meeting chamber.

It is on the third and last day of Temuura that Rey and Poe end up sitting on one of the balconies that overlook the great waterfalls of Demar III, sharing a bottle of starwine. (It is so called both for its traditional use at this festival, and for the way it glitters in the glass. Not that Rey can admire that, seeing as she and Poe are drinking straight out of the bottle.) Finn isn't with them, because the best and brightest of the Resistance infantry have invited him to join them in making candleboats to set loose on the river, and also in getting extremely drunk. Finn was incredulous with delight at being considered part of their select brotherhood, and Rey could not be happier for him.

But without Finn, Rey and Poe sit on the balcony, high enough up that the spray from the waterfall does not touch them, low enough to smell the sweet water-scent of the fast-running river. They pass the starwine back and forth. After a while, Rey says, "They must love her a lot, to do this. You must, I mean. You—the Resistance—you must love her a lot, to celebrate all her holidays with her."

Poe gives his sideways smile, his one-shoulder shrug. "It's not so much to do. The rest of us have worlds to go back to if we want someone to celebrate with us. She doesn't."

"Yes," Rey says. And then she thinks of herself, a child: isolated, alone. "But—"

"She's the heart of the Resistance," Poe says, taking a swig from the bottle. "And she's lost so much. Her husband, her brother, her son. And then before that, when she wasn't much more than a girl, her whole planet. Everyone and everything she'd ever known." He passes the bottle back, and Rey takes a drink. Poe goes on: "I'm too young to remember when Alderaan was a real place, but I'm told that it was beautiful. Great mountains and blue seas, and a society that had given up warfare and embraced peace, and—craftsmanship. They say that back in the day, the finest clothes, the best jewelry, the most intricate woodwork was all from Alderaan. And then, in one day, it was eradicated. Gone."

Rey closes her eyes. The starwine sparkles on her tongue. "So you try to give something back to her."

"Yeah," Poe says, taking the bottle back. "I suppose so."

Rey looks at him, sideways, and then smiles. "That's really good of you," she says.

Overhead, the X-Wings scatter fireworks, an artificial constellation on the blueblack sky. Below them, the candleboats crafted by Finn and the other infantrymen begin to float and flounder their way down the broad river, and tumble over the foaming lip of the waterfall.

Rey leans back on her elbows, and thinks of the water-celebrations of Jakku—and thinks of Finn, somewhere, elsewhere, celebrating what is probably his first holiday of all—and smiles.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] Festival](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5605906) by [Chestnut_filly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chestnut_filly/pseuds/Chestnut_filly)




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